Warwick Brady, chief executive of Stobart Group, said it would also be an opportunity to get more passengers to fly from Southend airport, which it owns, along with Carlisle airport.

John Strickland, director at JLS Consulting, said: “It’s still a difficult part of the airline market to operate in. The regional segment is the hardest, because it is short flights where passengers are price sensitive and there’s competition with rail and road.”

But getting a big cash injection should help the financial performance of Flybe and maintain routes, he said.

The 1p-a-share offer is well below the 295p at which they were floated in 2010 and the levels around 30p at which they were trading before October’s profits warning.

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